


Why Don't You Do Right

by lucycamui



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 1920s Aesthetic, Fluff, Lounge Singer AU, M/M, Romance, alternative universe, for scientific purposes, inspired by the official concert art, victor in heels and a backless dress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 15:38:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14751632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucycamui/pseuds/lucycamui
Summary: Victor's a lounge singer in love with his pianist, learning that at times, seduction can come in a form different from usual expectations.





	Why Don't You Do Right

**Author's Note:**

> An experiment, written differently from my usual style in order to try to match the tone of the piece to the aesthetic I wanted to capture

It’s the type of joint that’s always a bit too dark and a bit too crowded. There’s a buzz in the air, a collection of voices, the clink of ice in glasses of gin, the jazz band playing like they’re trying to set the mood. Red glass lamps line the walls, casting their hue. Red is sensual. It smooths skin tones, draws couples closer across clothed tables. A woman slides her hand up the skirt of her date in the corner. Someone else exhales smoke at the bar.

Contemporary, for the time, but no clocks tick. Here is a place to forget the hours, the underground lounge void of windows and natural light. Could be midday with the sun hot enough to burn, but inside it’s always dusk.

Drinks flow, dates go. The lounge mistress oversees it all from a darkened balcony, clicking her tongue.

A single stage light, not quite bright enough, illuminates the piano and the microphone stand. The jazz band has stopped playing, retreating to fill glasses of their own. Behind the piano sits a young man, in a checkered suit and glasses. He looks too proper and too sweet to be playing in a place like this, where the air is clouded and the tips may come from the hands of the mob.

A piano note breaks through, sharp, a statement. It turns a couple heads. As does the voice which accompanies it, low and sultry, spinning lyrics of cigarettes and money. Hair of silver cascades, a sheet of silk, falling over eyes of sapphire. They’re downcast, glossed as he steps from the part of the stage curtains. The grey pants and fitted vest could deceive as simple, but his black stilettos echo on the wood. Victor Nikiforov has stunned many an audience on his nights performing. Tonight, he plans on stunning only one.

There’s eyes on him, there always are. He knows how to strut. How to tilt his head and expose the line of his neck, smooth skin a temptation no matter of gender. He knows how to angle his eyes, how slow to lift his lashes and how to direct a gaze that’s nothing short of killer.

Breathtaking, they’ve called him. An ice king, a playboy, a legend. Victor knows. He knows and he’s gonna use every bit of those charms for what he’s planning tonight.

The microphone stand is his proxy. Victor strokes up the length, slow, fingers trailing like he’s caressing a lover. A touch, a shiver, a heady sigh that echoes in need through song. Ahhh. He moves closer, step crossed over step, leaning against the piano. His eyes sweep along the polished surface, to its player.

Those fingers dance across the keys and Victor wants to be played like that, to feel them on the inside of his thighs, over the curve of his spine, pulling not so gentle on the threads of his hair. He stretches out a hand, holding it out in offer, bidding welcome through song. His piano man just keeps on playing, gaze down on the black and whites.

They make music together, in the dark and smoke-filled lounge. The lights aren’t bright enough to wash out their audience, but Victor pretends that it is. He walks a hand along the surface of the instrument, as if claiming it for himself, from tail to bridge, voice slipping lower with his approach.

They play together, the falls of Victor’s black and gold heels matching the rhythm of the keystrokes. They could dance like this, to the same metric, swaying against each other as if they were making the type of love that Victor sings of.

The notes begin to fade, hollow, time ticking and running from Victor. He has one song with the new pianist, is this it? He cries out, voice a vibration, shaking the lounge like an earthquake, like he’d been shaken, at a magnitude that had left him unable to stand.

 _Yuuri, Yuuri, look at me,_ he wants to sing, wants to call out, wants to hold that face in his hands and breathe lyrics of passion right into that mouth. Yuuri’s fingers slip off the keys and leave them in silence, Victor’s voice already gone.

The spotlight extinguishes. They’re bathed in black. The applause is polite, appreciative, but Victor wants to collapse to his knees when Yuuri rises from his seat, bows, and hurries off.

It’s not enough.

But it will be.

* * *

Victor starts their tango off slow, as any dance of seduction should. He’s not used to this, to finessing steps and holding himself back from what he wants. Victor isn’t much of a hunter. He’s used to being pursued, used to the men and women who fall at his feet with bouquets of roses. Yuuri isn’t just playing piano, he’s playing the strings of Victor’s heart, tuning him to a higher tension with the passing days.

Their first rehearsal together, Yuuri had come in bold and made Victor’s heart stop in the passion that he played with, eyes heated and fingers flame across the piano keys. Victor had been weak for it, for the sweet lines that Yuuri fed him as if off a silver platter, for how Yuuri got him to dance even after the music was gone, for that inviting scent of sweet champagne on the pianist’s lips.

To think that Victor needs to work so hard to get the man who literally swept him off his heels to look at him. Now, Yuuri avoids eye contact like a dog hiding guilt. Hard to get. Well, Victor is determined to get him hard.

Before the lounge opens and before its space begins to hum with arrivals, Victor pours them drinks and makes eyes over the rim of his glass. He talks, voice low and burrowing, the one that draws out deeply nestled secrets as effortlessly as he could swipe red lipstick across that mouth and kiss it dirty. Yuuri swirls the ice cubes in his glass and tells Victor little, pulling back when Victor reaches a hand forward. Victor lets him go. Even dances have an apart.

That night, when Yuuri leaves the stage, he does not run.

* * *

When Victor sings, he lets the music fill him. That step from behind the curtains is like carving into a frozen lake. Lights, piano, voice. He plunges in, gasping, lungs momentarily frozen as he’s submerged and sinks.

The notes Yuuri plays pull him toward the surface.

When Victor moves behind the piano, one hand on the microphone and one trailing the line of Yuuri’s shoulders, those notes don’t falter. But Victor does, dragged back down under the ice.

The nights ends and Victor sits in the dressing room, letting his long hair fall loose. He runs a hand over his own neck, rubbing out the tension. Bending down, he rolls his stockings down to his ankle and pauses, seeing Yuuri by the door. The pianist is staring, flushing, sweet brown eyes snapping up from the long line of Victor’s elegantly crossed legs, revealed up to the hip by the long slit in the dress Victor had worn on stage that evening. Caught, Yuuri apologizes, whatever he’s come to say forgotten in his rush to depart.

Victor glimpses air.

* * *

The push to the crescendo is up a flat face cliff.

Victor asks Yuuri to show him how to play. They sit behind the keys, so close, but there’s a millimeter gap between them. Victor wants to slide in, to feel that hip against his own. He resists. Instead, he follows Yuuri’s hands.

His fingers walk over the piano with the same delicate purpose Victor imagines Yuuri might walk fingers up his spine, making him vibrate like the strings inside the grand instrument. Victor misses a note, and another one. He doesn’t need to push his lower lip out; Yuuri places his hands over Victor’s and guides him without being asked.

Under the bench, Victor nudges his ankle against Yuuri’s and knocks his foot off one of the pedals. The notes go flat. Instead of startling, Yuuri laughs and it's more melodic than the piano. He smiles and nudges back.

Victor soars.

* * *

Yuuri asks Victor to breakfast after the lounge closes one night. It rains on the way. Yuuri buys an umbrella and holds it over Victor. They’re already soaked, water sloshing in both their shoes. Victor’s never been happier to let his hair frizz as they walk side by side.

They arrive to find the diner lights dimmed and the door immobile. The rain clouds are still dark, the sun hasn’t peeked over the horizon. Yuuri’s embarrassed and shuffles his rain-soaked feet, a suggestion hushed of how he should escort Victor home. A pause, and then another, of how his own apartment is not far, where they could change, wait for the rain to fade and the diner to open.

The blowing wind is cold, but Yuuri’s place is warm. It’s warm in the photos littered throughout, of family, of friends, of a cute brown poodle. It’s warm in the kettle that Yuuri sets on the stove, in the worn comfort that Victor sees all around. Dull spots on the floor, a coat hanging over the back of a chair, a spinet piano on the far wall with its keys uncovered.

It’s warm in the towel that Yuuri brings, the spare shirt he offers and the way he lets his hands linger when he places them in Victor’s. Yuuri turns away when Victor strips off his clothes, waits until Victor tells him he’s decent. He isn’t. At all.

Yuuri’s laugh is warm as he averts his eyes, hosting the blush that sets Victor afire. They stay, diner forgotten, waiting out the rain as Yuuri starts to cook. There’s fish and a rich, salty soup that reaches into Victor’s core when he drinks it.

The hesitation that laid between them slips away, like the raindrops running in rivers down Yuuri’s windows. They talk about music, about life, about dreams, about each other. Victor tells Yuuri he likes his cooking and how he wishes to come again. Yuuri tells Victor he likes how Victor’s bare feet look on his hardwood floors and that he should.

By the time Victor has to leave, he doesn’t want to. He’s too warm.

* * *

Victor gives Yuuri the sheet music to a new song and feels his breathing go shallow when Yuuri’s brows furrow behind his glasses. That breath is stolen completely when Yuuri peels off his white practice gloves with his teeth. He plays the piece not flawlessly the first time, but close enough that Victor gets lost in it all the same.

New song means new routine and Victor is more than happy with the one the lounge madam requests. The week prior, Yuuri had asked Victor why it was that he sometimes wore gowns onstage. To Victor, the answer is a simple one and it’s the one he gave Yuuri.

“Some like me as a boy, some as a girl. I give the people want they want.” The fact he can pull off both is a gift which he cherishes. Tonight, they’re alone and Victor still does not know which Yuuri prefers. “What about you, Yuuri? How do you like me?”

Yuuri gets the tint of pink across the bridge of his nose, it dusts right beneath his glasses. Victor thinks he knows what’s coming, because that blush always means Yuuri is about to stammer through an endearing response and leave Victor even sweeter on him.

There’s a glare in the lenses of Yuuri’s glasses when he glances up, so Victor can’t see his eyes when he speaks. Perhaps that’s good, because if he could, the following words would have destroyed him.

“I-... I like both. I mean, I like you both ways.” Victor can hear it, the strain, the conflict in Yuuri’s throat before he continues, killing Victor softly. “I like you, just as Victor.”

Victor’s a champagne glass dropped from the top of a crystal pyramid. He shatters.

Rehearsals with Yuuri are bliss and torment. They’re in sync, playing off one another, a couple on stage as they aren’t off it. But Victor picks up the pieces of himself and stitches them back together. Like the practice of _kintsugi_ , he’ll repair himself into something better.

Backstage, Victor slips into the dress he’s been given and calls to Yuuri. The red stage curtains have nothing on the red number, fabric sparkling like rubies in the firelight. It’s an open back curving beneath his hipline, the skirt hem skimming the floor. There’s a zipper, stitched in seamless. Victor could reach it but asks Yuuri, lashes heavy as he casts a gaze over his shoulder.

Yuuri comes to him, hands twitching away before settling. The zipper’s hardly an inch in length, yet it takes a lifetime. Open as it is, it’ll give Yuuri a peak at the curve of his ass and Yuuri doesn’t exactly hurry to make Victor decent. He grasps the zipper with one hand and pulls it slow, the other resting on Victor’s waist.

Time ticks, filling the quiet room. The clicks of zipper teeth is as loud as the drumbeat leaving bruises in Victor’s ribcage. Warmth tickles his shoulders, Yuuri’s breath tingling into his scalp in its proximity. Half a step closer and they could embrace, but the zipper slides into place and Yuuri backs away, fumbling with cleaning his glasses on the hem of his own suit.

Victor turns, giving Yuuri the full view. His chest is flat and the front falls loose, the plunging neckline a temptation despite it. He longs to thread his fingers through Yuuri’s hair, feel it thick and coarse, cradle that angelic face where Yuuri would be able to hear exactly what it is that he does to Victor’s heart. Victor knows the dress is gorgeous, but if Yuuri doesn’t care either way, it’s all the more perfect.

It’s a daring risk, perhaps, but Victor takes Yuuri’s hand and holds it when they walk out together. The hand stays in his until they reach their designated spaces on the stage. Inside the lounge is dark, but outside it’s early. A few more hours before staff come filtering in. Victor prefers to rehearse in private like this, today more than any other.

The new music is slow and stays that way, the mood of a lonely lover seeking out their pair. Yuuri’s already memorized it, his eyes not on the piano but on Victor as he sings. Victor’s heels tap across the stage and he leaves them behind. The piano supports his weight as he leans onto it, hair splayed, lyrics falling as petals from his lips.

Blue fixes on brown, his focus on Yuuri as he calls out to be joined, to not be left alone. Yuuri answers him through the notes, through his eyes, through how unwavering he is watching. Victor falls and lets his dress fall too, pooling at the foot of the piano as Victor drops onto it.

On stage, he dances and sings for Yuuri every night, just as Yuuri plays for him. Tonight, he’ll make sure Yuuri understands, speaking through the language of the music between them. The polish of the piano is cool against his skin as Victor arches off it. He reaches for Yuuri and traces his lips, hair spilling onto the keys.

There’s a stagelight on them and when Yuuri closes the distance between them, Victor shines not of silver, but of gold.

The music stops, replaced by the melody of the kiss, by the rhythm of their hearts beating together. Yuuri floods into Victor and overwhelms him, melts him to the point he couldn’t possibly freeze again.

They break away and Victor sees that the smile Yuuri wears is a perfect reflection of his own. For a moment, the silence is beautiful. It breaks with the clang of Yuuri’s hands hitting the keys when Victor tugs him sharply back, claiming another kiss after kiss until there’s no music and instead the lounge is filled with laughter, with dull mistakenly hit notes, with the smack of their lips.

It lasts until Victor rolls, wanting to be closer, wanting to climb into Yuuri’s lap and hold him forever. There’s no music, but there’s Victor’s yelp as he falls off the piano and into Yuuri’s open arms.

Yuuri accepts him, and Victor’s entire being sings with love.

**Author's Note:**

> [Accompanying art from the lovely Morrin](https://somethingyoirelated.tumblr.com/post/174238514766/an-au-in-which-victor-is-a-lounge-singer-and-yuuri)


End file.
